


rebuttal

by painting



Series: Umbrella Academy [10]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Common Cold, Fever, Gen, Halloween, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-12 23:29:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21234371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/painting/pseuds/painting
Summary: "You should not be running around like that all night," Ben says five days later, when Halloween drops in with a vengeance like it always does. This year's festive surprise arrives courtesy of the changing season and its associated, personalized restlessness, in addition to the cornucopia of germs coating the family home's upholstery as a byproduct of Claire's status as a grade school liason."What, afraid I'll catch my death?" Klaus replies, hoarse and ugly, his throat dry from sleeping with his mouth open. "That ship sailed the day I was born, dear brother, but thanks for the concern."





	rebuttal

**Author's Note:**

> couldnt help myself!

A splash of stale tap water stretches across the table's surface until it stills to a stagnant puddle, distorting the pattern of oakwood before Klaus smash-splatters it down with Diego's napkin. 

"Shit," he says in lieu of a hello. "Sorry. Shit, sorry."

He gives up after a couple of seconds and lobs himself into the seat behind him at the very edge of the table. Diego picks up the plastic cup Klaus had knocked over with the habitual and unnecessary flurry he'd arrived in, his lack of aptitude in assessing the length and positioning of his own body apparently present with or without a medley of inebriants.

There's no comfort like the consistency of character.

"Nice of you to show up," Luther says to Klaus and not to the spill, despite his line of sight indicating otherwise.

"He overslept," explains Five, who hasn't seen Klaus all day. His tone is nothing but self-assured and casual as he spears a fork into the burrito Vanya had traded him for his quesadilla and fries. He didn't even have to ask her for them.

Vanya, content with the exchange anyway, says, "It's five in the afternoon."

Five shrugs. With his head still bowed down toward his food, he floats his eyes up to meet his brother's. Klaus crosses his arms and scoffs.

"What, do you have cameras in the walls or something?" he says.

"You were up all night," Five says.

"There _ are _ cameras in the walls," Diego mutters.

Allison frowns and asks, "Why were you up all night?"

"I wasn't," Klaus says. Then, he changes his mind and amends, "None of your business."

"Couldn't sleep?" Diego guesses, careful to maintain his monotonous vocal fry. He doesn't make eye contact.

"I wasn't _ blessed _ with the power to _ not _have to hang out with all of the confused and gory corpses our best and brightest local high school students conjured at their ouija board sleepovers," Klaus says. "Unlike the rest of you, I've had the pleasure of raging along with the party all night long. Wouldn't want to miss out. Couldn't dream of it, in fact."

Luther's eyebrows rise, his forehead wrinkling because there's not enough room for them up there. This is the most forthcoming Klaus has been with them in months. It's hard to tell whether it's because he's so tired from the sobriety and the season, giving him a shorter fuse and crumbling the walls he normally hides behind, or a new angle of guilt tripping he's testing out.

"Yikes," Allison says. 

"...Does it really work like that?" Luther asks.

Klaus just holds out his hand, curling and uncurling a fist like he's trying to grab something. Luther looks to Allison for help. Vanya reads the signal and hands Klaus a menu.

"_El _ _ Día de Muertos _ specials," Klaus reads on the back. "Someone's feeling topical."

"Sorry," Vanya volunteers immediately. "I chose the restaurant. I wasn't even thinking about…"

"If you let me eat your fries we can call it even," Klaus says, waving a hand in the air as though he's swiping away her insecurities. If only. Vanya readily pushes her plate to the space right between them and Klaus leans forward to pluck one off of its edge.

He nibbles on it and chews slowly. The dark circles under his eyes and the downward pull of his mouth make him look strung out and familiar.

"You gonna order something?" Diego asks.

Klaus shrugs and says, "Nah."

He reaches out and almost knocks over the glass bottle of ketchup in front of Five, who doesn't bother to help steady it even as it nearly falls onto his plate and crushes his bartered burrito. Klaus pours the sauce into a misshapen splotch that buries a couple of fries, eats another one, then spins the plate back around toward his sister.

"Thanks," he says. He leans back and drums his hands on the table.

With her chin tilted down and gaze suspended up, Vanya says, "You sure?"

Klaus shrugs and cranes his neck, surveying the dining area.

"Yeah," he says. "Uh. Not hungry. You, uh, go ahead."

"Okay," Vanya says, mirroring his shrug and sounding suspicious and a little sad. Regardless, she picks up where he left off.

"So," Allison adds, leaning forward to protect the table from the horrors of conversive stagnation, "did I tell you guys what Claire's doing for Halloween?"

Like a good, interested, sufficiently-involved teenaged middle-aged uncle, Five flatly says, "No. Tell us."

Allison smiles. She takes a sip of cola, swallows, and announces, "I'm bringing her and my friend's girls to the neighborhoods out by Lawrence."

Klaus whistles, low and impressed. He leans back in his chair.

"What's that mean?" Luther asks.

"Rich people houses," Diego says like he doesn't care one way or the other. "Three million dollar houses."

"They probably give the kids a pound of chocolate each," Vanya adds.

"Can't you just buy Claire a pound of chocolate?" 

"That's no fun." Allison takes another drink. "Besides, I want her to see all of the buildings up there. They're different from the ones in California."

"Probably just as big," Diego says.

Allison ignores him. "Does anyone want to come?" she asks.

"Nah," Klaus says, gesturing at his entire being.

"Luther?" Allison tries.

"That's a great idea! He wouldn't even have to wear a costume," Klaus says. "_ Ow! _ What?"

"What are _ you _ doing on Halloween?" Luther asks, offended and dry.

"Well, since I'm not allowed to get plastered anymore," Klaus says, matter-of-fact and charismatic to mask the truth of his feelings about the situation, "I suppose I'm going to be stuck inside Daddy's house, lest the dastardly temptations of celebration and holiday cheer win out over the _ thrills _ of six months' sobriety."

"That's why you should join us," Allison says. She kicks at him under the table, much lighter this time, friendly and playful. "It'll get your mind off all of that. There can't be too many ghosts around Lawrence Estates."

"Are you kidding? A millionaire's closet is bursting with skeletons. How do you think they make their money?" Klaus says. "_ Pass. _"

"Might be a good chance for you to practice using your powers," Luther says. When Klaus looks at him with his eyebrows raised, he gracefully elaborates: "You know. Sending them away. Uh, the ghosts."

"Uh-huh." Klaus looks to the empty chair to his right and says, "Who asked you?"

"See? Ben thinks it's a good idea, too," Allison says.

"Ben thinks a lot of things," Klaus replies, and once the conversation moves on, no one really bothers to follow up.

x 

"You should not be running around like that all night," Ben says five days later, when Halloween drops in with a vengeance like it always does. This year's festive surprise arrives courtesy of the changing season and its associated, personalized restlessness, in addition to the cornucopia of germs coating the family home's upholstery as a byproduct of Claire's status as a grade school liaison.

"What, afraid I'll catch my death?" Klaus replies, hoarse and ugly, his throat dry from sleeping with his mouth open. "That ship sailed the day I was born, dear brother, but thanks for the concern. Not that I--"

"Asked for it, I know," Ben says, rolling his eyes with his hands in his pockets. "But you didn't even want to do this when Allison first asked you, and now you have a reason to get out of it and you're digging your heels in. Why?"

Klaus shrugs and says, "Change of heart."

Ben scoffs. "Change of health," he corrects.

This time, Klaus doesn't bother with a retort. He ignores Ben instead, but it isn't pointed; he doesn't have enough fire in him to keep up an argument. He clears his throat while he trudges down the hall for a drink.

"Ben is annoying the living daylights out of me," Klaus says to Diego, who's coming down the hallway in the opposite direction when Klaus turns the corner. He stops in his tracks when Klaus addresses him. "Say something to drown him out, please, please, thank you."

"_Jesus, _ what the hell is wrong with your voice?"

"Ugh. Not that," Klaus says. "Not you too." He sighs magnificently and lets his shoulders drop as his head tilts back in a hyperbolic display of exasperation. He waves a hand -- the left one, _ GOODBYE, _ ha-ha -- in Diego's direction and scuffs his way down toward the corridor.

Clunkily, Diego spins around to follow him. 

"What's going on?" he asks. "You sick?" 

"Nope," Klaus says without stopping.

"You're supposed to do that thing with Claire and Allison tonight," Diego reminds him.

"Yeah," Klaus answers. "Gonna go hang out with Vanya first. _ Auf wiedersehen _."

"Wear a jacket," Diego says. He means for it to sound annoyed or even threatening, but it only comes off as empty since he doesn't really have much leverage to back himself up.

x 

For Klaus, Vanya's place is a safe haven near Halloween, because the tenants in her building are too old or too overworked to bother declaring celebration. Klaus used to love the irony of decorating himself with all sorts of ghastly adornments at any time of the year, making a show of his lifelong curse as he devoured medicine to mute it, but all of the reminders suck now that he's lost the option. 

"Hey, are you feeling okay?" is how Vanya greets him at the door, stepping aside so Klaus can cozy up on her sofa. "Diego said you caught a cold."

"When did you talk to Diego?" Klaus asks. Boisterously, he slips his boots off and leaves them under Vanya's coffee table.

"He called about half an hour ago," Vanya says. "Uh, do you want some tea or something…?"

"I bet he was just checking to make sure I'd show up here and not at the black market on Thompson street looking for cheap blow," Klaus says. He leans back and adjusts his body until he's mostly comfortable. "I'm fine."

"You sound shitty," Vanya comments. "Have you talked to Allison yet?"

Klaus clears his throat. "About what?"

"The trick-or-treating thing."

"Oh, yeah," Klaus says, and his voice cracks so he clears his throat again, louder, more pointed this time like he's trying to win a debate. "Yeah, do you want to come? We could pick you up on the way."

His voice breaks once more. He coughs two, three, four times into the open air.

"No, I meant…" Vanya frowns and walks over to Klaus with a mug of spiced Chai. "Aren't you going to stay home?"

"And break a promise? That goes against the tenets of the twelve steps, Vanya. I just couldn't."

"Okay," is all Vanya can say in response, because she doesn't know enough about sobriety programs to call him out on his nonsense, since she's pretty sure that's what it is. She's used to him being evasive, so she leaves the matter alone. "Are you going to dress up?"

"Not supposed to this year," Klaus says, and Vanya doesn't know what that means, either.

x

Claire is dressed as the Wizard of Oz -- not Dorothy or any of her friends, but the Wizard himself, the man behind the curtain -- and her friends are dressed as an ear of corn and a bottle of poison, respectively. No one argues over who's come up with the better costume. 

Klaus is asleep when they leave. Five, expression unreadable, saunters along in his place.

x

"I feel weird," Klaus says to no one, once he's woken up and the sun's gone down.

"Probably the fever," Ben murmurs dismissively, staring at chapter twelve of a work of historical fiction he's read twice already. "I don't see any ghosts around, though. Do you?"

Klaus shakes his head and says, "I thought that's what Halloween was supposed to be about."

He sniffles unproductively and listens to the wind outside. There's a draft coming from the crack in the window that he's too exhausted to try and mend.

"Your last sober Halloween was, what, age fourteen?"

"Twelve."

"Shit, really?"

"Yeah, and it sucked. Dad had us in the pool all night. Training."

"I don't remember that."

"I think it was just me and Luther and Allison, uh--" Klaus stops and coughs. "Specialized exercises."

Ben frowns. "Pool's not haunted, though."

"Small mercies," Klaus says. He yawns. "Dad really did care."

x

Diego runs into his niece and calls it a coincidence. Klaus returns to his nightmare and calls it a holiday. 

x

Everyone has gone their separate ways by the time November dawns.

**Author's Note:**

> i really hope people know that i dont headcanon klaus as someone who is CONSTANTLY ill and that i get to call this a precursor to another fic i wrote where he's still sick with the same cold. want to know why? because i'm a fiend. stay safe this thursday everyone!


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